


Adventures in the Marvel Multi-verse

by halcyon_autumn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Jurassic Park, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, Alternate Universe - Zombies, And now the inevitable star wars au, BAMF Helen Cho, BAMF Steve Rogers, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, I KNOW how ridiculous that sounds okay please work with me, Jedi Steve Rogers, Molotov Cocktails, Natasha hates pancake houses, PIRATE KING SAM WILSON, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, mother hen bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-04-23 04:04:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4862423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyon_autumn/pseuds/halcyon_autumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of Marvel AUs I'm just writing for fun and practice.</p><p>Currently includes:<br/>Cap Squad vs Zombie Apocalypse<br/>Jane Foster meets Sam Wilson, Pirate King<br/>Monster Hunters Natasha and Clint<br/>Bucky Barnes is trapped in Jurassic Park<br/>Jedi Steve Rogers has a bad day</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Zombie AU

**Author's Note:**

> Military buddies Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and Bucky Barnes team up with former ballerina Natasha Romanoff to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Steve thought they made a pretty good team.

Romanoff was a close range fighter. She’d been a professional ballerina with Bolshoi, performing in Manhattan when the entire world fell to pieces. “What are you gonna do, dazzle the zombies with your dancing?” Bucky asked upon meeting the redhead.

The Russian smiled, all white teeth and red lips. The first zombie she’d seen was graced with a crowbar to the forehead.

“That,” she said, Russian accent heavy, “is what I do.”

“Oh,” Bucky said over Sam’s delighted laugh. “Oh. Well that’s good, I guess.”

Bucky was long range, a black rifle slung over his back. “I lost an arm in Afghanistan, you know,” he said once, picking off a zombie outside a Walgreens in Brooklyn.

“Uh-huh,” Sam said. “You got a nice prosthetic though.”

“You’d think a missing arm would be enough.” 300 yards away, a zombie’s head exploded. “But no.” Another head. “The dead had to rise.” 

“That’s rough, man” Sam said, sending out a machine gun spray to cover Bucky while he reloaded. “Cap, on your left!”

Steve swore and swung a baseball bat to his left, feeling the crunch of a once human skull. “We need to retreat guys,” he bellowed.

“No,” Romanoff snarled. “I bet that store has tampons.”

“Toilet paper,” Sam bellowed back. “I’d kill a million zombies for toilet paper!”

“Fine,” Steve muttered. “Then let’s step it up.”

“No.” Bucky yelled. “Last time you ‘stepped it up’ you almost caught my hair on fire.”

“It was too long anyway,” Romanoff said to Steve. “You did us all a favor.”

“Cover me,” Steve said, crouching on the ground and digging a bottle out of his backpack. Where had he put that lighter fluid?

“Steve that better not be a Molotov cocktail!” Bucky yelled.

Romanoff nodded her approval as he lit the rag on fire. “That will work.”

Zombies didn’t roar, but they usually managed some guttural groaning when they burned to death. Well, re-death.

The Walgreens was surprisingly well stocked as the four of them walked in. They’d all been looking for supplies, but most of the stores they found were picked over. “They still have ibuprofen,” Sam said, dumping bottles in his backpack.

Steve walked towards the grocery section, then quickly backed away. “The eggs haven’t survived well.”

“Can’t believe that six month old eggs smell bad,” Bucky muttered, furiously shoving non-perishable food into his backpack. His backpack didn’t have lighter fluid and matches in it. He didn’t make incredibly volatile and dangerous weapons and nearly blow himself up.

“What is this?” Romanoff asked, hefting a blue bottle. 

“Detergent,” Sam said. “We can use it to actually wash our clothes. Oh, found the alcohol!”

Everyone scrambled over to look at it.

“This is terrible,” Romanoff said, taking a speculative swig of vodka and eyeing an $8 dollar bottle of wine with suspicion.

“Yup,” Sam said delightedly, popping open the bottle of wine and passing it to Steve.

Steve took a sip and hefted the bottle. “It’s not ideal, but I could probably do something with this.

Bucky made a low moaning sound.

Steve watched them all with a tiny smile. Romanoff had found the section of harlequin romance novels and was doing dramatic readings of the back covers. Sam was laughing at Romanoff and tossing skittles at Bucky, who was trying to catch them with his mouth and frequently missing. As Steve watched, one of the skittles bounced off of Bucky’s nose.

When the zombies started crawling out of the ground in California, land and air borders shut down. A few planes had carried sick individuals around the world, but most governments managed to quarantine people somewhat. The worst had hit the US and Canada but Mexico, twenty-three hundred miles south, was safe. If he could get the four of them down there and prove to the border guards that they weren’t infected, they might have a chance at living somewhere besides this apocalyptic hellhole.

It would be near impossible. But he trusted Bucky’s steady hand on the trigger, Romanoff’s quick grin as her crowbar came down, and Sam’s quick eye and machine gun cover. They could do this.

With a smile, Steve settled down beside Bucky and started trying to catch skittles.


	2. Pirate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is by far the most ridiculous, self-indulgent thing I've ever written. I love it.
> 
> My biggest inspiration for Sam here was the story of Ching-Shih, a female pirate who was probably one of the most ridiculously awesome pirates ever. Seriously. Read about her here: http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/ching-shih.
> 
> Sometimes I think that fandom forgets how hardcore Jane Foster can be. For example:  
> She drove a car into a lightning storm.  
> She helped some guy she'd just met break into a secure perimeter.  
> She met a god who'd led an alien invasion and immediately punched him in the face.

Jane did not love the sea.

She’d read poems that waxed lyrical about the ocean, describing how it slowly rose and fell, caressing ships or some such. But in the first week out, when a massive storm arose and the ocean tried to kill them all, it soured her a bit.

But the sky awed her in a way the ocean had failed to do. She crawled up to look at it sometimes, at night. A few of the deckhands rolled their eyes at her but let her tuck away in the corner of the ship, watching the stars spill across the sky. It was about the only thing she really enjoyed on this incredibly long voyage across the ocean. One of the crew members let her look at the star charts once, and she spent hours examining them, trying to understand them.

“You sure you don’t have a secret desire to be a sailor?” One of the crew members asked as she poured over the sky charts. “My Lady,” he added when one of the sailors gestured at her petticoats and overskirt, suddenly realizing that well-bred women did not traipse around on sailboats.

Jane smiled and thought about the bundle of carefully written documents wrapped up inside a chest in the captain’s quarters. “There is enough excitement in my life, I think.”

The sailors smiled politely, clearly thinking that she meant opulent balls and fancy dresses.

Jane Foster did not mean that at all.

By the end of the first month, she had staked out a place above deck that she considered ‘her spot,’ a nice, out of the way spot that allowed her to watch the action on deck while staying out of the crew’s way. She was sitting there when the shout rang out.

“Pirates!”

For an agonizing moment, no one moved. Jane felt her fingertips fizzle with adrenaline, her back muscles tense under her dress.

Then the deck exploded with activity. Crewmen yelled, pulling out anything that could that could constitute a weapon. Passengers screamed. Right on cue, a baby started crying.

The captain flew ripped out a spyglass and pointed it at the ship. “It’s the Falcon!”

Jane wasn’t sure what to do with that, but against all logic, some of the crew members _relaxed_.

“Oh,” one said. “Well, alright.”

Jane leaned forward. “If I might ask,” she said, “why exactly does the name of that ship reassure you?”

“Well, that’s Sam Wilson’s ship,” one sailor explained.

Jane felt that something was expected of her. “Ah, well then.”

The sailor rolled his eyes. “He calls himself the Pirate King.”

Jane kept waiting.

The sailor grinned. “He commands a whole fleet of ships.”

“Why is any of this good news?” Jane finally shouted.

One of the other sailors pushed the first sailor out of the way. “He and his people take a ship, take the jewelry or valuable goods, and then leave the crew and passengers alive as long as they don’t fight. Even then, they leave the noncombatants. Rape isn’t allowed. One of his people tried it and got thrown overboard.”

Jane considered this. “Yes, but he’s still a pirate.”

“Oh yes,” the first man agreed. “He once took a French duke captive. The duke was so impressed by the pirate king, he named a son after him. A Portuguese Princess was engaged to an English king, and Wilson attacked the ship carrying her dowry because, in his words, ‘no woman could possibly want to marry that prat.’ They say that the Princess cried tears of gratitude when she heard. The man is amazing!”

Jane turned to the second sailor. “Are all sailors so in love with this Wilson fellow?”

The sailor shrugged. “It’s about fifty-fifty.”

Jane watched the pirate ship grow closer. If the rumors turned out to be inaccurate, or exaggerated, she could very well die here.

She _hated_ the ocean.

As the ship pulled equal with them, ropes flew across. A man’s booming voice echoed across the two ships. “Hello! I certainly hope my reputation has proceeded me!”

Jane lifted her head to see a tall black man, cutlass dangling from his hip, waved at them all from the rigging of the other ship. “Let’s make this nice and easy, folks. You had over any gold and jewelry, I take it, and we part ways.”

“And let’s make it quick,” a blond man said, popping up beside him. “I’ve got a bet with the quartermaster that we can be gone in half an hour.”

“Is that a good idea?” The first man – Sam Wilson the Pirate King, apparently – said. “You already owe Bucky a good deal of money.”

The first sailor stared upwards, a rapturous look on his face. “He’s just as incredible as I’d hoped.”

The passengers and crew were forced above decks, watched carefully by several men – and a woman, to Jane’s surprise – armed with pistols and swords. The rest of the crew spread through the ship, digging out chests and expensive trinkets. The ship had transported nobles, including Jane, making it ripe pickings for the pirates. Jane could see them smiling at each other as they tossed items over to their own ship. And then she saw the trunk she’d left carefully left sitting in the captain’s quarters. She had spent an hour begging the man to keep in where it would be safe. “Wait!”

One of the pirates waved his cutlass at her, and she tried to shove him aside. Unfortunately he had a foot and a half on her, so he barely moved. “You can’t take that! It’s mine!”

The pirate holding her back chuckled, ignoring her when she tried to shove him again. The blond man from earlier smiled at her. “Taking other people’s things is what we do. It’s nothing personal. But leaving your items while taking other things would be rather unfair, don’t you think?”

“It’s my life’s work,” Jane explained desperately.

One of the male passengers huffed. “Some dress you’ve been embroidering, perhaps?”

“No,” Jane snapped. “No, I’m a researching strange phenomena that I believe are…” she trailed off, as nearly every person on deck eyed her, taking in her short stature, expensive dress, and carefully done hair. Nothing about her carried any credibility. To them, in her pretty dress, with her polished manners and noble accent, she was another decorative noble woman.

She faced Sam Wilson. To her surprise, he looked less contemptuous and more curious. “I’ve spent years of my life, and everything, _everything_ I’ve found is on the documents in that chest. It doesn’t go anywhere without me.”

Sam Wilson squinted at her. “Look, you seem very genuine. But if I start giving people their things back, it gets out, I lose my reputation, and that French Duke might rename his son. It would be a pain.”

Behind her, Jane heard the sailor she’d spoken to earlier. “I told you it was true! I told you!”

“I’m not asking you to give it back,” Jane said. “I’m saying that if you take that chest, I go with it. Wherever it goes. Even on a pirate ship. 

Sam Wilson stared at her, speechless.

 

 

 

They let her come on the ship.

Jane walked across the gangplank, fists clenched. Most of the other passengers stared in shock as she walked, skirts swirling in the wind. A few of the sailors – more than a few, alarmingly – looked envious. Most of the pirates looked confused. They weren’t accustomed to willing hostages. Or whatever she was. Tiny women who demanded to be let aboard, perhaps.

Once she stepped aboard the deck, a broad, brown-haired man nearly barreled into her. “Get those chests stowed below deck!” he bellowed. “Don’t hurry about it though. I’m gonna win money off Steve for this one.” The man stopped and looked at her. “You are not a pirate.”

Jane pointed at the chest by her feet. “I just followed my things over.”

The man continued to stare. “You…can’t do that.” He turned to yell to the rest of the crew. “Someone escort this woman back to her ship.”

“Nope,” the blond man said, strolling across the gangplank. “She’s coming with us, Bucky.”

“Steve, please tell me this random stranger is not coming with us.”

“She is,” Sam said, following him across. He turned to wave at the ship he’d just briefly take over. “Lovely to meet you all!”

Bucky’s jaw was literally hanging open, to Jane’s amusement. “Are people volunteering to be captives now?”

Jane frowned. “Am I a captive? Is that the correct terminology?” Now that she was actually thinking it through, she probably was a captive. That was not comforting.

Sam shrugged. “There isn’t really a good term for you. Very determined hanger-on? Excuse me.” He strode off, yelling commands. Bucky took one last confused look at her and took off, narrowing in on a deckhand who was apparently doing something incorrect with rope. That left her with Steve.

“Uh,” he said, looking as lost as Jane felt. It was starting to occur to her what a terrible idea this was. She didn’t know these people. She didn’t know where they were going. She didn’t know what they would do to her. Panic crawled up her throat, choking her. She had just marooned herself on a _pirate ship_.

She glanced down at the chest of her feet. That was the most important thing. As long as they let her have that, she could do what was important.

Steve still looked uncomfortable. “There’s not a lot of space, but I think we can find you somewhere to sleep?”

“Okay,” she said, bending down to grab her chest. Steve beat her to it, lifting the box into his arms.

“I wouldn’t want to pry,” he said, “but may I ask what is in this box? I’ve never seen someone willing to follow something onto a pirate ship.”

Even the pirates thought she was insane. Absolutely spectacular.

“It’s…I mean, I’ve been studying these…” she trailed off. Her parents were increasingly frustrated with her work, subtly suggesting that she pursue a life path that might actually produce results. Marriage would be ideal, but she suspected that they’d accept anything at this point. In lieu of that, they’d forbidden her to talk about it.

But Steve was looking on with real, genuine interest as he led her below deck. “I, uh, there are a lot of unexplained occurrences in certain places. The laws of physics seem to…misbehave. Magnets stop pointing north. Pistols fire impossible shots. Mirrors don’t reflect the right things. I started documenting them out of curiosity, and then I noticed patterns.”

Steve frowned. “What patterns?”

Sam tracked them down an hour later in his quarters. Her notes were spread across his desk, with she and Steve carefully examining a map. “See, if I include the weather irregularities, it alters the area,” Jane explained without noticing that Sam had entered.  “But weather irregularities are so subjective, and based on anecdotal evidence. No one keeps accurate measurement about rainfall.”

Steve nodded. “Any pattern between the locations? Clusters, maybe?”

“No, but my data is necessarily limited and too much is secondhand. I was going to try to visit someone in Germany, a man named Erik Selvig. He’d noticed some of the same occurrences I had, and had been able to observe more of them first hand. We were going to compare notes,” she said, eyes bright.

“Uh,” Sam said. “Hello.”

“Oh!” Jane said. “Sorry about the mess. I got caught up explaining my research.”

“I’m starting to understand why you followed this on to a pirate ship,” Steve said, shuffling through several of the papers. “Reassembling this would be nigh impossible.”

Jane nodded emphatically. “And it means something. I’ve been chasing this for nearly a decade. Something is causing this.”

Sam stood over Steve’s shoulder. “This all seems…complicated.”

Steve grinned. “Jane here found some really weird stuff and has been tracking it.”

Jane frowned. “Well, when you explain it that way it really minimizes my work.”

“Don’t worry,” Sam said. “I’m absolutely convinced that it’s very complicated.” He glanced at the rudimentary map that Steve had sketched out to mark where Jane had observed strange occurrences. Jane’s drawing skills were awful enough that no one could understand her maps but her. “You know, Peggy might be really interested in this. Thor too.”

Jane frowned, and Sam explained. “I’m Captain of this ship, but several ships sail in my fleet. I think a few of them would look into this.”

Jane’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

Steve was nodding too. “Yeah, Peggy loves a mystery. Thor loves this stuff too. Says it lets him connect with his mystical Viking ancestors.”

That sailor had not exaggerated nearly as much as Jane thought. “How many ships sail under you?”

“Four,” Sam answered. “But Tony and Natasha are engaged in a competition to see who can loot the most English ships.”

“Yeah,” Steve laughed. “Those fellows are still really mad about that Portuguese Princess thing. They tried offering Tony and Nat money to turn on Sam and both took offense.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Sam said, grinning. “But Peggy and Thor would both be interested in this. I’ll send a message.”

Jane didn’t stop grinning for four days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for fun, here's where the other avengers ended up. I couldn't figure out how to fit it into the story.
> 
> Natasha: Captain, Clint: First Mate,  
> Tony: Captain, Pepper Potts: First Mate, Bruce: Quartermaster  
> Thor: Captain, Sif: First Mate  
> Peggy: Captain, Angie Martinelli: First Mate


	3. Vampire Hunters AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natasha live job to job, tracking down supernatural creatures and taking them out. Outside a small town that was until recently menaced by a vampire, their duo gets a bit bigger.

People had started calling him ‘Clint Barton, Vampire Slayer.’

Clint felt it was inaccurate. After all, he killed werewolves too. And ghosts. In fairness, he recognized that “Ghost Slayer” didn’t sound nearly as good.

“Still,” he complained to Natasha, his partner, squinting at her in the dark. “They could call me ‘Werewolf/Vampire Slayer.’ Or something that indicates how many things I kill.”

“Wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re a one trick pony,” Natasha agreed. He heard her slam a magazine into her pistol. She turned, shot, and something in the dark of the forest split the night with its shriek. “This one’s fast.”

“They’re always fast,” he said. “Didya hit it?”

“Please,” the redhead said with a snort. “I’m gonna do this one the same way we did Nashville.”

Natasha leapt over the fallen log they’d used for cover before he could point out that he’d nearly lost an eye in Nashville. Grumbling silently to himself, he started to circle left. There was a copse of trees that would work just fine. He could see Nat shift forward, crouched down, as he notched an arrow and pointed it above her.

Abruptly she stumbled forward into a patch of moonlight, hands clutching her ankle and swearing in Russia. Before Clint could move, the vampire charged her.

It was a man, dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt riddled with bullet holes from Natasha’s gun. His skin was pale– sickly pale, not the attractive paleness that Hollywood seemed to think that vampires had. He towered over the fallen Natasha, snarling, two pointed canine teeth jutting from his mouth.

Clint released his arrow. The _thud_ it made when it struck the vampire was immensely satisfying.

Natasha had her own stake out, yanked out of her boot, but she didn’t need to use it. The vampire crashed to the ground, clawing faintly at the arrow in its heart.

Natasha dropped the stake and flipped out her phone, snapping a picture as the monster died.

“Don’t send that to Steve,” Clint said as he walked over to the pile of dust that was once a vampire. The only thing left was his arrow, the tip still smoking slightly. Killing a supernatural creature changed a weapon. The arrow was now half wood, half a smoking black metallic stick. He’d once seen a silver sword used to kill werewolves that was entirely black and warped. Clint carefully picked up the arrow, trying not to touch the twisted half.

Natasha was already up and picking leaves out of her hair. “You’re up as bait next time.”

The adrenaline still hummed in his veins, and from Natasha’s wide eyes, she could feel it too. This vampire had been over five hundred years old and had killed sixteen townspeople over the past year. It had taken the better part of the day to track the vampire down, and then they’d followed it through the forest for most of the day. He’d fired very few of his arrows; Natasha, on the other hand, had shot the thing plenty of times. Bullets wouldn’t kill a vampire, but they would hurt like hell and piss the thing off. Clint had realized that their real advantage over other monster hunters was that he and Nat pissed the things off more than most people. Angry, pained monsters made stupid choices, like rushing a woman without thinking about her backup or the multiple stakes she hid on her person.

But now it was dead, there was a reward waiting back in town, and they were both buzzed on excitement and near-death. So he kissed Natasha, triumphantly, with the corpse dust of a dead vampire beside them.

“You’re the best partner I’ve ever had,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed, leaning up to kiss him back. “The town probably thinks we’re dead. I’m sure they heard that last scream.”

“Maybe they’ll pay us more in relief when they see us alive.” There was a twig in her hair from her fake fall, and she smelled like gunpowder and the solvent she used to clean her guns. Her green eyes were wide with excitement, and her red hair fell in curls around her face. Were all women this beautiful? “I’m incredibly lucky.”

“Yes,” she agreed again, wrapping her arm around his neck to kiss him again.

 

 

“We tell them we killed the thing, and then we crash.” Clint said with a yawn as they headed to the SUV they drove. They both generally kept late hours, but staying up until dawn was later than usual.

Natasha nodded, her eyes barely open as she swung herself into the car. “I still can’t believe you were driving a minivan when we met,” she mumbled.

“I needed something big enough to transport a small armory,” Clint said defensively. “And it was cheap.”

“Yes, it was definitely cheap,” she agreed, turning up the radio to drown out Clint’s retort.

The town was about thirty minutes away. As they drove, the sun crept up and lit up the forest. Dark, gnarled shapes became brilliant green trees. Birds began to sing as the sky turned yellow and pink with sunrise. It was rather idyllic, he thought to himself.

Natasha checked her phone when they were about ten minutes out. “Steve responded. He seems to be doing a lot better. There’s some werewolf killings that he might look into.”

“Good,” Clint said. “It’s been two years since Bucky died taking out that vampire nest. Steve needs to go back to his life.”

“And Wanda texted. She’s got a read on some sort of mystical activity in Delaware that she wants us to check out.”

“She still rehabilitating that werewolf?” Clint asked, turning down the volume.

“Yeah. I think she’s almost convinced that Banner dude that he can have a semi-normal life.” Not every vampire or werewolf was a malicious murderer. Most were, but occasionally decent people got turned, people who didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Wanda, besides being a psychic of impressive ability, took those people in and tried to help them.

They’d met a few – a very few – decent werewolves, and one vampire whose evilest act was stealing blood from the Red Cross. No good ghosts though. Ghosts, without exception, were a pain in the ass.

When they rolled into town they immediately headed for the crappy Wafflehouse. Natasha grumbled – “I hate these pancake houses” – but spoke politely to the waitress and then called the mayor to tell him it was done.

Within thirty minutes, half the town (a rather small population) had gathered. Clint waved at them. Some of the teenagers snapped pictures.

“Hashtag Clint the vampire hunter,” Natasha laughed, unconcerned by her own lack of internet fame. Natasha had very good reasons to avoid become a public figure.

The mayor finally arrived and settled down on the other side of the booth. “You finally killed him?”

“Took most of the night,” Natasha grumbled. “I hate hunting vampires at night.”

Clint handed the man the twisted arrow, still careful not to touch the blackened part. “Here’s the proof. One dead vampire.”

The mayor examined the arrow, noting the blackened. “I didn’t realize the results were so dramatic.”

Natasha nodded. “I’ve got a silver bullet that took down a werewolf. The thing looks like a piece of coal.”

The mayor nodded. “You’ve saved this town, you two.” He looked ready to tear up, to Clint’s horror. Luckily, the mayor pushed a manila envelope across the table to them before he could cry. “There’s the amount we agreed upon. I’ll take care of whatever you spend on breakfast as well.”

The mayor went outside and gave some speech about how they were all saved. The cheering was audible from inside the restaurant, but they both ignored it. The adrenaline had worn off, and they were both stiff and tired from the night in the forest. Clint shoveled food mechanically into his mouth. Natasha ate fast, but still more gracefully than him. Both took advantage of their free meal to order what would probably be lunch and dinner. They were always tight on money. He wished they could work for free; there were people who needed them who would never ask because they couldn’t pay. But monster hunting wasn’t cheap. They needed weapons, ammo, and food. Their clothes ended up ripped and torn pretty often, and had to be replaced. Even with the money they made from jobs, they still slept in their car most nights, pilled under blankets with a pistol or knife in reach in case something tried to make a meal of them. It was rewarding work, but there wasn’t a lot of money in it.

So when the brunette cornered them outside the Wafflehouse and demanded to join them, it came as a bit of a surprise.

The girl wore a pair of ripped jeans, sunglasses, and a leather jacket. She was definitely trying to look cool.

Natasha stared at the girl with barely concealed shock. “No,” she said after a shocked moment. “No, you cannot come with us. What are you, twelve?”

“I’m eighteen,” the girl said.

“Have you ever _touched_ a gun?” Clint asked.

“Yes!”

“She’s lying,” Natasha said, and started to walk away. Clint turned to follow her.

“Fine,” the girl said. “I don’t know how to use a gun! But I’m incredible with a bow.”

Clint stopped.

“Clint, no,” Natasha said upon seeing the look on his face.

“How good are you?” He asked the girl, who started to grin.

 

 

The girl, Kate Bishop, turned out to be pretty good. Not as good as him, Clint thought. But better with a bow than most other people.

“We can’t bring her,” Natasha whispered as the girl drew another arrow. “She’s a kid, Clint. She could go to college. Become a teacher or a dental hygienist or something.” When Clint didn’t answer, her voice grew frantic. “Clint, she’s too young.”

“She’s choosing this,” Clint said. “It’s not like what happened to you.” Natasha still looked uncomfortable. “Nat, she can always quit. We’ll start her out easy, give her a basic haunting. Wanda can point us in the right direction. If she’s uncomfortable, or wants to quit, we’ll let her out.”

“What if she doesn’t?” Natasha asked.

Clint shrugged. “This is a good life, all things considered. What we do matters. We’re heroes. I mean, we’re poor heroes, but still.”

Kate had walked back over to them, a grin on her face. “Pretty good, huh? Definitely good enough to take out a vampire or two. Or a werewolf.”

“You need something made completely out of silver to kill a werewolf,” Natasha said without looking away from Clint. “Silver tipped arrows won’t do it. Guns are the best bet.”

Kate made a dismissive gesture. “Whatever. Guns can’t be that hard.”

Natasha made a face. “Okay, rule number one: don’t talk crap about guns.”

“Or pumpkin spice lattés,” Clint added. “She gets very defensive of seasonal drinks.” He paused. “Wait, you’re letting her come?”

“She has to sit on your side of the car,” Natasha grumbled.

“My side is a mess! Put her on your side. There’s more room.”

“Nope. Hey, you can sit on the right side,” Natasha called to Kate, then stepped up into the SUV. “Don’t make me regret this, Barton.”

“I won’t,” he said as he climbed into the passenger side. Kate was already in the car, perched on the edge of her seat.

“So where are we headed?” The girl buzzed with excitement, almost bouncing up and down on the seat.

“We need to take her to Stark, get her outfitted with weapons,” Clint said.

“No need,” Kate said, and dumped her backpack out on the other seat. Several stakes, a silvery necklace, a few vials of holy water, and what Clint assumed was grave dirt tumbled out.

Clint nodded his approval. “Pretty good. Did you pack any food?”

“Uh,” the girl said.

“Rule Two,” Natasha yelled. “Always bring food.”

Clint grinned at Nat. This was gonna be great

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this AU is sort of a mix of a bunch of different stuff I've read. There's some obvious Supernatural influences, but also a bit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Dresden Files. There's some many different stories about what kills vampires/werewolves/whatever that I just picked what I wanted. Also it always seemed ridiculous to me that, in like 6,000 years of recorded history, humanity had never managed to notice that vampires were real. I HATE the trope.
> 
> Feel free to come to my tumblr and say hi!
> 
> http://buckynating.tumblr.com


	4. Jurassic Park AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finds himself trapped in Jurassic Park.

In all fairness, Bucky knew that he’d been warned.

“You’re signing up to for that dinosaur park?” Sam had asked two years ago, sprawled out on the dingy couch in his apartment. “The one with like, raptors and t-rexes?”

“There’s just the one T-rex,” he’d said.

Natasha had rolled her eyes. “Good thing there aren’t a ton of other deadly dinosaurs, all of which can eat you.”

“Some of them are herbivores?” He’d offered. Sam had just started laughing, and Natasha had rolled her eyes even more impressively.

So now, here, crouched behind a boulder with a pistol in one hand and a carnivorous dinosaur twenty feet, felt like a sort of cosmic ‘I told you so.’

_Why,_ Bucky thought to himself. _Why is this happening to me?  I am a good person. I gave to charity once!_

The dinosaur was slowly emerging from a lake, eyes swiveling from side to side. It looked like a raptor and a crocodile had unprotected sex and then left the offspring to be raised by aggressive hockey players on steroids. Also it had some sort of giant fin on its back. He wasn’t sure how to fit that into the metaphor. The name was Spin…o…rex. Or something.

Bucky ducked back behind the rock, counting his bullets again in case a fifth one materialized in his pistol. Why had he only brought a pistol to investigate reports of part of the fence being down? Stark had ordered daily safety tests – or Potts had, really. Everyone knew she was the one really running the park, but Stark had a gift for showmanship that had drawn people to the park even after that horrific failure years ago.

Well, Potts hadn’t run enough safety tests, because he could hear the massive thing inhaling, as it stepped forward, clearly not in its paddock.” He checked the gun again. Still four bullets. When Sam and Nat heard about his death by dinosaur, he hoped the knowledge that they were completely right about the dinosaurs breaking out would console them in their time of grief. He slammed the clip back into the gun and peeked over the rock to see the dinosaur leering down at him. Against the massive, sprawling monster, his pistol seemed extra tiny.

Somewhere behind him, an engine snarled, and machine gun fire crackled. Bucky scrambled out of the way, hoping that his ungraceful scuttle wouldn’t be the last thing he did. As he glanced toward the noise, he saw one of the strangest sights of his life.

One of the park’s transport vehicles, which were essentially souped-up golf carts, was zipping towards him and the salivating dinosaur. Leaning out of the cart was Steve Rogers, one of the other guards. The man had gone full-on Rambo, with a _machine gun_ pointed at the dinosaur. Beside him with an Korean woman that he didn’t recognize, hair whirling around her head as she drove the golf cart straight towards the dinosaur.

Bucky raced towards the cart. He considered shooting the dino with his pistol, but he wasn’t sure how effective it would be. The dinosaur was roaring at Steve, who took the opportunity to shoot the thing’s open mouth.

Bucky barreled onto the cart as the dinosaur turned, apparently having decided that the comparatively tiny Steve was an opponent too great to be matched. It began to slid backwards, descending back into the lake.

For a moment, there was blessed silence. Steve wiped an arm across his forehead. The woman sighed and leaned against the steering wheel. Bucky stared at them. “Uh, nice to see you guys?”

Steve grinned at him. They’d become friends after Bucky had started working at the park, long nights playing pool at the park’s approximation of a bar or talking about what they’d do with their impressive paychecks when they made it out. Steve had a bit of a habit of reckless actions, which he was clearly exercising now as he nodded with satisfaction towards the retreating dinosaur. “Yeah, you had it on the ropes.”

“Sure did.”

“Let’s focus please,” said the woman.

“This is Helen Cho,” Steve said, pointing towards the woman. “She works in the bio labs, cooking up more of these things.”

Bucky smiled, suddenly aware that he was covered in mud and sweat. He offered a hand towards Helen. “Hello ma’am. Lovely to meet you.”

“Yes, very nice, wish the circumstances didn’t involve escaped dinosaurs.” Helen sucked in a breath. “This isn’t the only escaped one, by the way. The dinosaurs are still far away from the visitors, but fences all over the park are failing.”

“Of course they are,” Bucky said. The cosmic ‘suck-it, you were wrong’ just continued on.

Steve’s excitement after fighting the dinosaur was fading into seriousness. “Helen found me with some information she thinks might explain how the dinosaurs are escaping. We realized that you’d gone out to examine a fence and thought you might have ended up in a bit more trouble than you’d expected.”

Helen frowned. “Which you absolutely had.”

He didn’t have a good comeback to that, and so cleared his throat rather than make a pithy comeback. “So, Helen, what did you find out?”

“The dinosaurs we’ve been making? They’ve got human DNA.”

“What?” Bucky yelled.

“Human DNA. It might explain why fences are failing all at once; the dinosaurs are concentrating their efforts at the same time so that there’s too many problems to deal with.”

Bucky felt that he should have expected this. “Someone has to…I don’t even know how to deal with this.”

“Helen and I are planning to track down Stark and let him know. He and Potts can coordinate…something.” Steve didn’t look particularly confident in his plan.

It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all they had. Bucky looked down at his still very small pistol, and emotionally squared his shoulders. “Well, let’s go then.”

“Great,” said Helen. “I’ll drive.” She gunned the cart as much as was possible, and they took off across the dinosaur-infested park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dinosaur that Bucky faces is this one: http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/s/spinosaurus.html
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr maybe: www.buckynating.tumblr.com


	5. Star Wars Au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jedi Steve Roger is on the hunt for a Sith Lord. He gets more than he expects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen friends. I know - I KNOW - that "Jedi Steve Rogers" sound utterly ridiculous and does not fit with Star Wars naming conventions AT ALL. But the other option was trying to make 'Steve' into a Star Wars name. While it may be theoretically possible, I know my limitations and that would have been worse. So Jedi Steve it is.
> 
> Also, this is set during the Sith Wars. I've only played a little of Knights of the Old Republic, so my knowledge of the Sith Wars goes like this: the Sith fought the Republic, and there were a whole lot more than two Sith. That's all I know, and that's all you need to know for this fic to make sense.

It was night on Kashyyyk. Steve found that he missed the stars overhead; the interlocking web of tree branches above was too dense to see any sky. He hadn’t been to the Wookie homeworld in years, but he didn’t remember the sense of near-claustrophobia being her the last time he visited. Of course, that might be attributed to other factors. The dark side was here, heavy and threatening like a storm about to break. After tracking it halfway across the galaxy, he had locked onto the presence of a Sith Lord, and a powerful one.

Ridiculously, he was glad it was a full Lord rather than an apprentice; his constant failure to bring a Sith apprentice to the Jedi way was disheartening. Fighting one of their masters, however, was not nearly as depressing. They fully understood the consequences of their actions and committed them anyway, and they’d passed up plenty of chances for redemption by that point. He felt no guilt in putting them down.

And here, on this sleepy corner of the Wookie homeworld, the Force was sour with the dark side. The Sith Lord was here. His own presence in the Force was masked, a Jedi technique that he’d spent years perfecting. Unless his opponent knew exactly what they were looking for, he would leave no presence in the Force.  With luck, he’d be able to end the battle before it began. Without it, well, he’d never met someone who could outlast him. Every opponent eventually made a mistake, and this would be no different.

His movements were silent as he stalked through the trees. With a battle approaching it was difficult to hold onto the calmness that his masking technique required; he wasn’t yet good enough to mask the bundle of nerves and excitement that a lightsaber duel usually brought on, but he could let those emotions dissipate into the Force rather than hold on to them. It would, he hoped, be enough.

And then he felt the sourness intensify, his body flinching inward at the sensation. On pure instinct he stepped into a small hut and came face to face with a Sith Lord in all her glory. It occurred to him that somewhere, he had probably made an error.

The woman grinned at him, though it was more a show of teeth than anything friendly. She was dressed simply, in dark grey and crimson robes that he was sure she’d purposely chosen to mock the Jedi uniform. Red hair framed a pale, focused face. One hand rested idly on top of a deep gray lightsaber hilt.

Suddenly he was tired, so tired, of this war and the Sith and the death that he found everywhere he went. Rather than pull his lightsaber out, he sighed. “Which one are you?”

She raised one dark red eyebrow. “Darth Araneae. I’m a bit insulted not to be recognized on sight.”

“I mix you up with Darth Sanguis,” he admitted.

The Sith Lord snorted. “We have very different coloring. She’s blond.”

“You were both there at the battle of Kadao,” he said. “I tend to remember Sith Lords by body count rather than hair color.”

Some expression – regret? satisfaction? frustration? – crossed her face too quickly to read. Then she smirked. “I’ve heard about your penchant for moral lectures. Are you going to try to convince me of the wickedness of my ways?”

By the Force, he was tired of this. “No,” he said, and drew his lightsaber, the blue blade illuminating the hut.

She was on him a moment later, a red bolt of plasma streaking towards his head. He blocked, the defensive moves of his preferred Soresu a strong counter for her aggressive style of Ataru, and saw a flicker of unease in her eyes. It wasn’t the first time this had happened; many Sith, open meeting him, had assumed his to be an aggressive fighter thanks to his body count. His defensive style surprised them. Even worse for Araneae, the tight, enclosed space favored his style over hers. The hut was small, and even the ceiling didn’t go that high, blocked by wooden beams. Presumably she’d thought he would move outside; any practitioner of a more aggressive style would. Now she would be forced to push him backwards, outside the hut, for her style to work. From the look on her face as she dueled, she could tell how difficult that was going to be, particularly using Ataru. He almost felt bad for her.

Not quite, though.

Finally, she grew desperate and leapt into the air, drawing her legs into her body and stabbing the lightsaber towards him with one hand. He blocked easily, confused at what she was trying to accomplish with such a stupid move; he’d be able to bisect her in a moment.

And then her feet slammed into his head with a Force-assisted kick. He stumbled backwards as he realized that, while he’d been distracted, she’d grabbed onto a wooden beam and used the momentum to kick him backwards. He was impressed in spite of himself.

Now that they were out of the hut, he could still beat her, but it would be riskier and, as morning grew closer, more likely to involved a civilian. He had to end this quickly.

Soresu had several weaknesses, chief among them its overwhelming reliance on defense and lack of offensive movements. Most Soresu users knew only a few offensive movements, and they tended to be the same ones. Araneae would be expecting those movements, he knew. He could use that. Or perhaps he could trick her. It wasn’t a very Jedi way to fight, but considering he was a member of an order of monks who were fighting a war, he supposed some contradictions were to be expected.

The Sith Lord leapt towards him, hair like flame in the darkness, and he stepped wrong, purposefully, letting far too much of his weight shift to the left. It frustrated him to do it, to leave such an obvious gap in his defense, but with such an aggressive form he doubted she’d be able to resist it.

She did, to his frustration, laughing as she spun to his side and nearly flanked him. “Raise your standards for me, please.”

Worth a try, he thought. The pattern of strikes and blocks continued, the Sith’s frustration grew as she failed to land a hit despite her increasingly acrobatic movements. And then she mis-stepped, her eyes widening as she realized her mistake, and his blade cut into her side.

She leapt backwards, swearing, and he pushed the advantage. His Makashi was rusty; he hadn’t practiced it since Bucky’s death a year ago, but it had been his best friend’s chosen lightsaber style and he knew enough to get by. He brought the saber down in the third movement of Makashi, then fell back into Soresu as Araneae charged forward. She was growing desperate, he thought; her swings weren’t quite as control, her blocks not quite as quick. This would be over soon. Perhaps he should drive her back towards the edge; the entire village sat on a platform of branches, and tumbling off the platform was a certain death. He’d rather end it quickly; even with Sith, he didn’t like dragging their deaths out a moment longer than necessary, and the fall would be long and terrifying and end with a sickening crunch. But the important thing was that the battle ended. He’d hold it in reserve.

Then Araneae stumbled backwards, losing her balance, and he knew it was done. She scored a hit, a light brush against his shoulder, but he nearly cut her leg off in exchange. The Sith Lord fell, trying to keep her lightsaber up, and it was over, finally, and he was about to drive his lightsaber into her chest and end it when a scream split the night.

“Natalia!”

He knew that voice.

A figure burst out of a nearby hut, red saber drawn, and leapt at Steve. He nearly died, right there, as the second Sith tried to bury his blade into Steve’s head. He blocked out of sheer instinct; he’d blocked this man’s strikes before, though the lightsaber had been green rather than red. “Bucky?”

The Sith glared at him. It was like looking at a painting after someone had altered a detail too small to pick out; you knew something was wrong without being able to figure out what. “Who the hell is Bucky?”

Steve opened his mouth to explain, or demand an answer, but the Sith – _Bucky_ – was faster, his Force powers flinging Steve backwards and slamming him into a hut. Steve scrambled up, staring at Bucky’s venomous yellow eyes. “Wait!”

Bucky ignored him and scooped Araneae up – carefully, tenderly– and then vault off the side of the platform that town was based on. Steve yelled a warning, forgetting Sith and seeing only Bucky, his best friend since childhood, leaping to his death. Again. Steve ran forward, straining outward with the Force. _I don’t care what he is, just don’t make me watch this again, the Force couldn’t be so cruel -_

And then Bucky rose, a speederbiker under him and Araneae still in his arms, and sped off into the distance.

Steve watched him go until he was gone, until the sourness of a Sith Lord had faded, and then turned towards his ship. Perhaps, after he was done howling his grief into the Force, he would contact the Jedi Counsel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written Evil!Natasha before, and this was a DELIGHT.
> 
> A note on the lightsaber forms: Soresu is what Obi-Wan uses in Episodes II and III. It's extremely defensive and focuses on blocking, which was my nod to how Steve fights with a shield in canon.
> 
> Makashi, Bucky's preferred form, is the form used by Dooku. It's specifically designed for lightsaber duels, and sucks for things like blocking blaster bolts. I thought that Steve and Bucky's styles would really compliment each other nicely.
> 
> Natasha is using Ataru (I believe that's what Yoda uses during his duel with Palpatine, but someone correct me if I'm wrong). It's very acrobatic, and involves using the Force to augment what your body can do. It's good for short, violent fights and VERY tiring in long ones. Steve's got the advantage from the outset.
> 
> Darth Sanguis is my tiny nod to Yelena Belova. 
> 
> Come say hi on my tumblr maybe? http://buckynating.tumblr.com/


End file.
